The Waterfall Eco Dynamic now comes with updated design, which gives you superior fuel efficiency, but what’s the performance like on these boys? Let’s find out.
Table of Contents
Info on Sizes
The Waterfall Eco Dynamic comes in 13 to 20 inches rims, with sizes having following specs.
- Speed ratings: T, H, V, and W.
- Load ratings: SL and XL.
- Weight range: 14 to 40 lbs.
- Tread depth: Either 9 or 10/32″.
- Treadwear warranty: None.
Key Takeaway
Overall, the Waterfall Eco Dynamic is a great tire when it comes to:
- Noise Reduction: Thanks to its tread compound containing polymers that effectively dampen sound.
- Durability: Featuring a robust construction with a dual-ply polyester internal structure and twin steel belts.
- Straight Hydroplaning Resistance: Equipped with symmetrically aligned channels that efficiently displace water in straight-line scenarios.
Though the tire needs to be improved when it comes to:
- Wet Grip: Its lack of tread suppleness affects its ability to absorb water.
- Overall (dry) Handling: The tire provides less lateral traction and requires more steering input.
- Winter Performance: The tire’s inadequate biters in the tread, reduce its effectiveness in snow and icy conditions.
- Ride Comfort: While it excels in noise reduction, the tire’s stiffness affects its ability to absorb road shocks.
Construction
The Waterfall Eco Dynamic comes with a symmetric tread design.
The tire offers a very sleek design with 5 total ribs (or block columns).
Let’s start with the middle, three, as they are not subtle, and pretty straight forward, (literally too).
The middle (most) rib is distinguished by sharply angled notches that are oriented in both directions for improved grip.
Flanking this are ribs that incorporate gracefully curved lateral grooves and sipes, complete with beveled edges.
(If you look closely, you’d note that these adjacent ribs rest upon a secondary layer of rubber, providing them with sturdy foundational supports).
Moving towards shoulders, (outer ribs), these are exceptionally robust and more compact, relatively.
Here, extended lugs are adorned with “T” shaped siping and are complemented by interlocking lateral grooves that run in parallel, enhancing the tire’s stability and traction.
Side Note: If you’re new to my site, and looking for an great all-season option for your needs, you should start here.
Dry Performance
The defining characteristic of an all-season tire is its exceptional performance on dry surfaces, characterized by responsive steering, efficient cornering, and effective braking.
Let’s get into these features, starting with directional grip.
Directional Grip
This type of grip refers to the tire’s ability to maintain friction with the road while moving in a straight line, (a common scenario seen on highways).
Moreover, it’s primarily gauged through the tire’s stopping capabilities, largely influenced by its central region (where most of the weight gets saturated, while the vehicle rolls straight).
And in this context, the Waterfall Eco Dynamic is a good enough option.
Its design incorporates compact central ribs with longitudinally aligned lugs, enhancing smooth straight-line motion. These lugs are further enhanced with multiple grooves and notches, providing pretty decent directional grip as evidenced by the tire’s good enough stopping power.
But yes, there’s still room for improvement, where the tire could use a little lighter design.
I mean its added weight creates significant rolling inertia, requiring more energy (and time), for the tire to come to a stop, on average, (from 60 mph as seen on tests).
For Your Info: Compared to Defender 2 (review), the tire lacks by over 3 feet on braking tests.
Overall Handling
In a nutshell, the tire’s performance in handling is somewhat underwhelming, particularly when compared to its primary competitor.
On average, looking at all sizes, in comparison, the Waterfall Eco Dynamic provides about 0.5 G less lateral traction, resulting in lap times that were, on average, 1.4 seconds slower compared to it’s direct competitor.
So what’s causing this?
The reason behind this performance gap is primarily the tire’s steering characteristics.
Its steering response feels somewhat muted at the center, requiring more input than usual to achieve the intended direction change. Additionally, once the tire does respond, it tends to oversteer.
This behavior makes handling the vehicle more challenging, necessitating very precise throttle control to manage the tire’s response effectively.
Ride Comfort
Ride comfort in tires is fundamentally influenced by two aspects: the reduction of tread noise and the tire’s ability to absorb road irregularities.
While the Waterfall Eco Dynamic may not excel in providing a smooth ride, it performs better in noise reduction.
This is primarily due to its tread compound, which contains polymers that significantly reduce noise. However, this same compound falls short in effectively absorbing road shocks.
So what’s going on here?
Well, to understand, you need to know how tread noise gets generated.
So this has to do with air particles hitting the tread, creating different kinds of tones (for example, them hitting the sipes particularly, they create growling sounds).
And while these sounds are typically of mild to low volume, they can be amplified by echoing inside the tire, creating what’s known as in-groove resonance.
And that’s where the Waterfall Eco Dynamic comes in.
The tire addresses both these kinds of sounds (predominately), with a variable pitch pattern, which helps to distribute and minimize the sound, by segmenting them in to various tones of differing frequencies (which try to cancel each other out).
Additionally, the composition of the tread also help here, as it dampens in-groove resonance by absorbing the sound waves.
However, this same composition/polymers additives that aid in noise reduction also contributes to the tire’s stiffness.
As a result, although the tire is pretty quiet on roads, it’s less effective in managing vibrations and absorbing bumps, impacting its overall ride comfort scores.
Fuel Economy
Fuel efficiency in tires is closely linked to their rolling resistance.
But what factors contribute to this resistance? Well, primarily, it’s the tire’s weight.
And this is where the Waterfall Eco Dynamic could see improvements.
Now, technically speaking, since lugs have greater weight on them, they are more susceptible to bending. I mean, the tire comes featuring 2 ply polyester casing, taking its weight up to 40 lbs, one of the highest you’d find among its peers.
This weight exerts additional pressure on the lugs, causing them to flex more. And when lugs bend and then have to return to their original shape, this process results in energy loss, impacting the tire’s overall fuel efficiency.
Wet Performance
Exploring the wet performance, here two things emerge, tire’s hydroplaning resistance, and overall grip/steering.
Let’s get in these elements in more details.
Wet Grip
Achieving superior wet grip in tires hinges on two key factors: extensive siping and significant tread flexibility.
And the importance of these elements lies in their functionality.
Sipes, which work on a microscopic scale, are essential for effectively removing water. They (along with some biters), push the water particles in to their slits, as they are squeezed between the road and the tread.
In other words, they act as small water containers, absorbing water particles in, and later spraying them out.
Now, this aspect is where the Waterfall Eco Dynamic falls short, I mean it’s the tire’s weakest point.
So why is happening, even though the tire comes with an intricate siping pattern, with full-depth sipes arranged at various angles across the tread?
Well the primary issue here is lack of suppleness in those biters and overall tread, which hampers their ability to effectively absorb water.
Consequently, this limitation negatively impacts both the wet braking and handling capabilities of the tire.
Hydroplaning Resistance
Hydroplaning occurs when a tire “floats” on a surface of water, caused by a layer of water forming between the tire tread and the road.
To counteract this, tires are designed with special grooves that help expel out majority of water (unlike the sipes which work on a smaller scale).
Now, since the Waterfall Eco Dynamic is equipped with four symmetrically aligned channels, it makes sense why it’s adept at removing a considerable amount of water from under the tread.
So you get pretty decent straight float speeds (meaning, the tire reaches up a good speed, on average, before it starts to float, when moving in a straight line on a few mm deep water).
Though it’s “channels” lack effective lateral pathways, (as they aren’t interconnected with each other). So the tire isn’t able to impress in terms of “curved” float speed tests.
Basically, the absence of adequate lateral water expulsion paths, impacts its ability to maintain grip and stability when it’s cornering on a watery road.
Durability and Tread Life
The Waterfall Eco Dynamic stands out with its robust construction, and advanced design, making it a durable and long-lasting option for drivers.
In terms of durability, the tire features a standard dual-ply polyester internal structure, common in (grand touring) all-season tires. And this is complemented by twin steel belts, a nylon cap ply, and notably thicker and stronger sidewalls, a characteristic of its internal design.
So you get a strong construction, but at the cost of weight. Meaning, Waterfall Eco Dynamic’s relatively greater weight (going up to 40 lbs), push down on lugs more, increasing wear.
Moreover, the tire’s relatively smaller tread depth isn’t also helping here (talking especially about its sizes which have 9/32″).
This is because smaller the tread depth, the faster the tire reaches down to 2/32″ replacement threshold.
But sure, the tire does offer above average tread life for sizes, particularly speed ratings of H, allowing for above 40k miles of use. And this is attributed to its stiffer rubber relatively.
For Your Info: Tread life is inversely proportional to speed rating.
Winter Performance
The Eco Dynamic exhibits significant limitations in winter conditions, as evidenced by its lack of the 3 Peak Mountain Snowflake certification, which is a must-have for tires in its category (of grand touring AS).
Now the weakest point of the tire here, is its directional traction, which assess snow acceleration and braking.
This deficiency is largely attributed to the absence of adequate biters in the central tread area.
While the tire does possess a sufficient number of biting edges towards its shoulders, its overall handling in winter conditions is compromised by the stiffness of its rubber compound. This rigidity prevents the biters from functioning at their full potential.
The issue stems from the tire’s relatively hard rubber composition, which does not adapt well “thermally”.
I mean, in cold temperatures, (typically below 45 degrees F), the rubber becomes rigid, reducing the effectiveness of its biters (on the tread).
So why is the flexibility of the biters crucial here?
Well they help grasp snow particles, creating snow-to-snow contact, which generates greater friction, compared to snow-to-rubber contact.
This happens because, snow sticks better to itself than to rubber.
So without sufficient flexibility, the Waterfall’s tire here fails to gather enough snow, leading to reduced traction, particularly on purely icy surfaces.
Summing Things Up
In summary, the Waterfall Eco Dynamic offers a good performance but only across some conditions with majority of areas needing improvement.
Its dry performance is marked by responsive steering, efficient cornering, and effective braking. However, its handling still falls short compared to competitors.
In wet conditions, the tire offers good enough hydroplaning resistance, but its stiffer rubber does not provide you with adequate grip. And yes, same is the case when it comes to winter performance.
And although the tire’s stiffer rubber does offer good enough noise reduction (as discussed), it under-performs in absorbing road shocks.
And sure, this rubber composition helps in tread/fuel economy, but here the tire’s weight come in the way, and so you end up with average performance, I mean, there’s nothing out of the ordinary here.
